


Little Stones, Big Stones

by Maybethings



Series: Grey Warden and Short Taarbas [3]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Kadanmance, Lullabies, Qunmance, Warabigami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natia Brosca doesn’t sing. Qunari don’t dream. Both things happen anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Stones, Big Stones

The bed was too big. That was all Natia could think as she lay sprawled upon the cottony mattress and its flower-scented sheets, surrounded by soft pillows and warm blankets. She was drowning in comfort, and she knew that she should be enjoying it—but she wasn’t. Orzammar had hewn her into too rough a shape for that.

Upon the floor, at her feet, Fiver the mabari snored gently, at peace with the world and occasionally paddling his large paws in his sleep. She could have joined him on the floor, curled up against his warm flank and perfectly at bliss, but Alistair had found her like that once and raised such a fuss. It was full of you-don’t-have-tos and how-could-you-evens and eventually, she just had to block him out. The man was sweet, sweet as rock candy, but sometimes possessed as much insight. He had slept on straw, yes, but she was more used to canvas, stones, dirt, and on one very memorable occasion, a pile of nug corpses. Big fluffy beds just didn’t sit well with her, no matter how hard she wanted them to.

There was nothing for it. She’d just have to wait until sleep stopped running and let her catch up. Easy enough. Natia slithered off the bed, pulling off one of the covers with her and drawing it over her shoulders like a cape.

The Warden let her feet wander where they would, up and down the corridors of Eamon’s home. All was at peace, and she breathed deep of the tranquil night air, bare feet padding quietly against the cold stone, steps slow and measured. She felt better already. It was colder than she’d expected outside the sanctum that was her room, though. An icy finger of wind slyly tickled her skin, bare but for her nightshirt, and she drew the blankets tighter around her shoulders, cringing and quickening her step past the windows.

 _I wonder if Sten’s awake_ , she thought suddenly. He was usually the last to rest at night, but the first up in the morning. His stamina was legendary in their ranks. She knew his room was not far from hers, and so she retraced her steps, creeping through the halls like a little ghost with her blanket-cloak wafting behind her.

She found his door and knocked, gently. No answer. Natia quietly pushed it open, and saw him sleeping on the bare bedframe, the mattress stripped and neatly deposited under the bed, along with many of the pillows and blankets. She should have thought of that! The dwarf turned to go, disappointed for a reason she couldn’t really name. Just at that moment, Sten groaned in his sleep, long and low.

She turned right back round for him.

There was little of the customary tension in his face, but his jaw was clenched as he fought with whatever his dreams wrought. Natia thought to wake him, but dismissed that thought summarily. She remembered a fairly recent nightmare about darkspawn—her own—and Alistair shaking her awake. Her fist had shot out and blacked his eye. She was still trying to live it down.

But she did notice one of his broad, squarish hands uncovered by the blanket, so she sat next to him and grasped it in her own, curling her short, fat fingers around his and squeezing gently.

“ _Stel barak_ ,” he gritted out in his rough, hard tongue, but said no more as he relaxed against the sheets. He seemed to have calmed down, at least. She wondered what could scare a Qunari. His fears. His hates. His irrational weaknesses. But she was in no position to ask anything from him, other than companionship and the silent, deep-rooted pleasure of being called ‘ _kadan_ ’. She shifted a little and pulled her feet up off the floor, close enough to breathe in the scent of blankets and sheets and sleeping Qunari, and to feel the warmth of his body. He put out heat like a furnace. Always had, as long as she had known him. It was very comforting to walk alongside the qunari in the depths of the Frostback Mountains—she’d never been toastier in her life.

Her thumb smoothed its way tenderly across the back of his hand, rough with scars and cuts and a pale, twisting cord of flesh whose source she could not explain. She still thought it was one of the most beautiful hands she had ever seen. It was strong and sure and had probably seen more battle in a day than she’d ever had in a week. It belonged to him, and really, she needed no other reason to find it appealing.

Suddenly, she realised she was humming. Not just any song—an old lullaby, and slightly out of tune, at that. Oh dear. Oh Stone, she was going soft. Kalah would never have let her live it down—but she had not sung her lullabies, either. Maybe once, long ago, before a dwarva’s brain could start recording memories, but when Natia thought of home, she thought of _Rica_ and _stone_ and _dust_. Increasingly she thought of _camp_ and _Sten_ , but always there was the whisper of _family_ and _warmth_.

Natia picked her sleep-addled brain for a song, any song but that one, but it was the only bit of music she had in her and knew by heart. And so she held on to his hand and sang, drawing upon the rapidly diminishing part of her self that was soft, that could actually sing, that did not tramp around slaying darkspawn for a living.

_Little stones, big stones, quiet in the deep  
Close your eyes, dwarva-child, go to sleep  
Rocks in the cradle, gems in the wall  
Sleep with the Stone ‘till the criers call_

Somehow it got easier with every word. She could stop reminding herself not to shout the words out like a battle march, to keep her voice low and quiet and soothing. A little smile pulled at her lips as she hummed the same verse a few times, maybe making up a few more as she traced little circles across his skin. His grip slowly relaxed, and she slipped her hand carefully out of his, pushing a stray braid from his face and carefully pulling the covers right up over his shoulders.

“Sleep well, Sten,” she said and trotted off to her own bed, which suddenly didn’t seem too big or too soft any longer. Her dreams were mundane, if not pleasant, for the first time in a long while.

The next morning, wonder of wonders, she beat the Qunari out of bed. He was halfway armoured, sure, and she was still in jerkin and pants, but it was the being up and about that counted.

“Y’know, I went patrolling last night for a bit, and…you were, I mean you sounded pretty restless in your sleep. What were you dreaming about?” she asked.

He pulled on his boots and turned to her. “Qunari do not dream.”

“Huh. All right then.”

* * *

Some nights later they had left the safety of Eamon’s estate—oh, for a proper kitchen-cooked meal! Oh for a warm, too-comfortable bed!—and returned to camping on the road for the time being. But Alistair’s stew was less grey than usual and the fire was high and warm, and the party sat about it laughing and chatting, and finishing the last of the warm Denerim ale. It had to go somewhere. Their stomachs were as good a place as any other.

Zevran had suggested that everyone contribute a drinking song. Natia protested, saying she didn’t sing, couldn’t sing, it would rain nugs and darkspawn if she sang—and bawled out a few off-key stanzas of ‘Paragon of Drinking’, just to prove her point. Zevran sang several. Alistair knew one, pertaining to cheese. Oghren declaimed a ballad about Willy the Warrior, which made Wynne cover her ears in exasperation. Then came the last man’s turn.

“How about you, Sten?” Zevran said with a sly smirk. “Sing us the song of your people.”

“No. The antaam do not sing.”

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Alistair moaned. “You’ve never picked up anything anywhere?”

“I have.”

“Well, you heard the man.” Natia grinned encouragingly, waving an arm. “Go on. Sing. I’m sure you have a great singing voice.”

As it turns out, he did. Unfortunately, the first words out of his mouth were “ _Little stones, big stones, quiet in the deep…_ ”

Oh, Stone. Oh, Paragons. Oh, _Paragon’s balls_. Oghren burst out in incredulous laughter and Natia buried her face in her hands, mortified, peeking out between the gaps in her gauntlets. Sten caught her eye, but his expression did not change. Only—only, was that a gleam in his eye?

“Where in the Stone’s name did you pick that up?” Oghren howled, doubled up and weeping with mirth.

“In a dream.” Sten’s voice remained supremely casual. Natia’s cheeks burned, and it wasn’t from the fire.

Eventually the party retired to bed, leaving Alistair and Sten on first watch. Natia rose, dusting imaginary dust off her greaves, and turned to her comrade.

“…You big stonking _liar_ ,” she whispered, a nervous chuckle edging her words.

“You sing well, despite everything,” Sten said, completely ignoring her.

“Oh. Uhm. Well. Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” And then, in a much lower tone of voice that raised goosebumps under her armour, he added, “Perhaps one day, I may learn the rest of this song.”

Natia undressed in the shadows of her tent, resigned to more dreams of the Blight and the darkspawn. Eyes heavy with drink and drowse, she curled up in her sleeping furs, listening to the muffled hoot of night birds and the crackling of the fire. And behind all that, suddenly, clearly, she heard Sten’s deep humming, the notes familiar and old and warm. She closed her eyes, uncurled and smiled, feeling that no bed would ever be more comfortable than right there and right then.

And she was right.


End file.
